REVIEW: ANYA (Hindi & Marathi)

Producer-Shelna K and Simmy Joseph

Director- Simmy Joseph

Star Cast- Atul Kulkarni, Raima Sen, Prathamesh Parab, Tejaswini Parab, Yashpal Sharma, Govind Namdeo , Krutika Deo and Sunil Tawde

Genre- Social

Platform of Release- Theatres

Rating- ***

Impactful!

Jyothi Venkatesh

Initiative Films with the support of Capital Woods Pictures has made a bilingual film (Anya), in Marathi and Hindi with South Indian director Simmy Joseph, who is making his debut as a director in both Hindi as well as Marathi.

The dark film which has been made in not only Hindi but also Marathi by Simmy Joseph, who incidentally happens to be a Malayali sets out to touch on the socially inflammable important issues of today such as espionage, truthfulness, sex trafficking, child labour, orphanage, farmer suicides, etc. and tries to present the idea of how badly has our country changed over the years ever since we got freedom from the British today.

To put it in a nutshell, the film is about an enthusiastic documentary maker who wants to uncover the truth, and aims to help her audience understand the real side of the story.

Will Divya, Deepak, Arindam and Sartaj be able to get justice for the victims of human trafficking? The best thing about the film which I liked is the fact that though the writer-director is setting out to present the same old plot of whatever wrong is going on in the country today, the way he has tackled the film with his own vision is really exemplary.

The film revolves around a documentary filmmaker Divya played by Raima Sen who sets out to shoot a documentary with funds from a politician who wants to exploit the footage to dethrone the ruling government.

The documentary filmmaker is also involved seriously with a feature filmmaker Deepak, played by Bhushan Pradhan, who with the writer Arindam, played by Arul Kulkarni set out to make the documentary on paltry funds doled out by the politician

While Atul Kulkarni rises above his role as the writer and performs skilfully, Raima Sen gets into the skin of her character as a documentary filmmaker, in a hitherto not seen character, infusing not only raw intensity but also sizzling passion in her amorous sequences with her feature filmmaker beau.

Prathamesh Parab is exemplary in his character of Sartaj as a money minded small time activist who undertakes the difficult task of taking the crew to the by lane of disrepute and organising the shooting for the documentary.

While Tejaswini Parab asYamuna has boldly played the role of a mother to an eight year old daughter skilfully, Yashpal Sharma and Govind Namdeo have been wasted in inane roles in the film. Krutika Deo is good as the young girl Khushi whois rescued from sex trafficking by Sartaj

All said and done, I’d say kudos to the people who are behind this impactful film since an attempt has been made through this film to explore a realistic hard core issue prevalent in society today in society today and expose the sordid truth behind it in the form of a simple story without any frills attached to the narration in a very linear manner, though the film tends to stagnate halfway through and your interest in it is doused a little when it becomes repetitive at times